Author Comments:

...wow. From a strictly ethical standpoint, this just might be the most horrible thing I've ever done.

And for those of you who skipped your chance to readthoseVotingIncentives, might I again suggest doing a little homework to provide yourself with some context?

So, after doing pretty good at staying a few pages ahead of everything for over two weeks, I finally ran out page buffer with this page. HOPEFULLY I'll be able to get enough extra stuff done tomorrow to get out ahead again, so I'll at least be able to keep the streak of pages going up at Midnight alive. I THOUGHT I'd be able to get some extra pages done after this one, since the art was finished especially quick. But, for some strange, mysterious reason, it took me a very, very long time to get the dialog finished. Almost as if I really didn't enjoy writing any of it and quietly despised the fact that I'd even been able to find some of those lines inside my own head. Can't imagine why THAT would happen, though...

User Comments:

...actually, now I can accept how Pattie treated Layla in the opening chapters before the retcon as something reasonable. If THIS is what her closest family treated her like, at the BEST of times, when she was growing up, then she was likely completely emotionally dependant on her husband (Eric). With his death, she stuck herself into a state of self-hypnosis (something she learnt as a child to keep herself from committing suicide) where she was able to treat Layla coldly for the plan stated in the linked Voting Incentives.

After all, reading this page on how she was treated at Christmas, Pattie just does not look like she would have the ability to, emotionally, do ANYTHING in the year or two after Erick's death. In my eyes, anyway.

And "A Year Or Two" is my CONSERVATIVE estimate on how long it would take Pattie to be able to interact with anything without being under deep self-hypnosis, under the best of conditions.

:o
Even so, I'm still not entirely certain this is worse than having Megaweapon as a sibling.

Judge: On the charges of Cruelty to Webcomic Characters, Aggravated Cruelty to Characters, and Serial Aggravated Cruelty to Webcomic Characters, how does the jury find the defendent, Mr. Blitzkrieg? Jury: "GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!" Judge: *bangs gavel repeatedly* Mr. Blitzkrieg, for these heinous crimes, I sentence you to many years of long hard labor (and lack of sleep) drawing this Webcomic, until such time as all of these characters receive a happy ending! And don't be late!

Funny thing is, I was actually thinking about asking a question in the comments on the previous strip about whether any of Layla's grandparents were still around, since we don't really ever see that 2nd generation in FOT much, but I decided not to because I figured they had probably suffered some horribly ironic death (because that happens a lot). Now I kind of hope they did. (At least for the maternal side, maybe Eric's are OK)

After all the stuff she lived through, I'm glad she managed to get a good husband.
(From what I've seen in Real Life, abused people tend to have a bad track record of choosing a good spouse)

Though, Darius Drake is right. After Eric died, she would have crashed hard. Even more than is usual for when your closest loved one dies.

And then of course her only child seems to blame her for everything (which had got to hurt, especially considering this page...) and ran off with a boy and some strange man with bad fashion sense.
And I don't think any parent really wants their child to do that.

Gah!
Why is this the page that I finally catch up to the current update on? Whatever, at least I don't feel bad about my non-sequitur now. Namely, I think I figured out how smackjeeves links work. As long as smackjeeves doesn't change the index number of a comic when you change the name, you should be able to use the below methods.

Hope this helps! Adding a name shouldn't ever break a link, but you'd have to plan ahead and post all links like the second one just in case if you wanted to be able to change the title without breaking the links.

Edit: I made a test comic on smackjeeves, and changing the title of a comic doesn't change the index number, so this should work! Though there's always the possibility it won't work for everyone, but that seems unlikely.

Coincidence?
Amusingly, I chose that second link just because I needed something to clense my palate after the comic. I did notice that album was mispelled when I went through the whole gellery, but that was months ago. Subconcious awesomeness, perhaps?

Regarding Pattie's reaction to Eric's death, I don't think it's automatic that she would go catatonic or break down or whatever. I would expect that she would likely revert to whatever coping mechanism she last used as a teenager to deal with that horror, whatever that might be. Possibly just immersing herself in her work to the exclusion of anything else so as not to think about it, which would fit her, I think.

Her marrying Eric was probably just good luck on her part - I wouldn't be surprised if her intial attraction to him was just as a rebellious thumb-in-the-eye to her snobbish rich jerk family for her to date/marry a broke known small-time con-artist/criminal, and she just got unbelievably lucky that he was a actually decent guy. Incidentally, would not want to be anywhere near Layla if she ever finds out Pattie has started dating again (ie "Trying to replace her dad"), particularly since Pattie is not likely to be so lucky in her choice next time so the guy will probably be a jerk.

@Blitz - if you are going to torment a child, torment Megaweapon. That probably won't spoil anyone's day. In fact, it generally produces a warm happy feeling.
I was wondering what misspelling you were referring to - apparently a comment I made 8 months ago? In that case, as long as we're nitpicking: in panel 1 of this strip, the correct spelling for "to look briefly" is peek (as opposed to "this is the peak of child cruelty" meaning the zenith)

I wonder what someone thinks if today is their first time viewing this webcomic? Maybe we need a disclaimer: Caution - today's strip is not representative of FOT's normal level of cute adorableness and hugs?